


Community

by restlessAnatomy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ableist Language, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, everyone is queer and nothing hurts, implied ymir/krista
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:09:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessAnatomy/pseuds/restlessAnatomy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin finds the camaraderie in military life surprising. </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"Why do you think there's so many people like us in this particular squad? I thought it was generally a taboo thing in the military."</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Reiner shrugs, chewing on his last chunk of bread. "I suppose there's not enough people left to be picky about who is allowed to enlist anymore. If we're willing to die for them, who cares who or what we are, right?"</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Community

**Author's Note:**

> so apparently i'm just going to write transfic in every fucking fandom i'm in, slay me. this started as dumb drabble and it's still kinda dumb but yea hope it's alright
> 
> also i do not condone the usage of ableist language it just seems a thing that jean would say in that sort of situation!

Military life came with many surprises.

Sure, there were the things he had expected - drill seargents with severe anger management problems, gruelling training exercises, sub-par food rations that never filled one completely up, overcrowded barracks and a complete loss of all privacy.

He dealt with this as well as he could- changing under the sheets in the morning, waiting with Eren until everyone had exited the bathrooms before showering hurriedly, hidden by his friend's bulk, stuffing rags in his pockets on long training exercises just in case this was the year his body decided to betray him.

At the start, there were a few other recruits - all older and taller - that made fun of his short stature, his weak chin and voice, called him names. This didn't bother him much, either- he'd endured much worse back in the village, and the name-calling stopped when Mikasa had introduced the perpetrators to her fists.

The long-sought-after M scrawled next to his name on his records was laughably easy to obtain; the physical exam had been a cursory pat-down by a doddery old general with all his clothes still on to check for any obvious deformities, and then he had been sent on his way.

No, the thing he didn't expect was a sense of community.

It took a fair few months for any sort of group to be established- there were hundreds of recruits, and in the beginning Armin mostly kept to himself and the only two people he knew. But slowly and surely, the group of three enlarged to one, two, three, more people in. Though they didn't all necessarily get along (Jean and Eren were constantly butting heads, and Mikasa had a bit of a tormenter dynamic going on with Sasha,) they all became integrated in what felt a bit like a family.

And then of course he began to notice things.

Not that he stared at the other guys when they were changing - his eyes just lingered a little. Sometimes. But there were things that caught his eye- like the barely-visible scars on Reiner's chest that were mostly hidden by the bulge of his pectoral muscles, the needle-scars dotting Bert's thighs, and other things; forward-slumped shoulders, the backrubs that a large amount of boys traded like they were stamps, the gesture of tugging at the front of the shirt.

These things weren't confined to the boys, either. Armin watched with interest as for a month and a half, Krista refused her bread ration in exchange for whatever grain the kitchen could spare, and then presented Ymir with a pair of socks stuffed with the grain and tied off with twine. The next day, Ymir was constantly hugging Krista and shoving her head between her new breasts, an uncharacteristically giddy expression on her face. Annie watched all this with a rare amusement, and then began hoarding grain herself.

And when he heard tell of the member of the Recon corps who was unanimously referred to as "they"- well, it made his chest swell.

His decision to be more open with his comrades would take a few more months, however.

-

"Hey," Eren says, already stuffing his face as he sits down next to Armin. "What's new?"

"Nothing." Armin replies, pushing the greyish-pink meat around his plate, resting his chin in his other hand. "There's a three-day training excursion that begins tomorrow. Are you going to be in my group for that one?"

"Probably not." Eren replies, catching someone's eye in the line and waving them over. "I'll most likely be up the front. Don't think we'll be sharing a tent this time."

Armin pretends to wince in offense, laughing to cover the slight sting he feels. It takes another moment to realise the subtext of the statement. Seems he won't be sleeping in comfort the next few days.

Mikasa sits down on his other side at the moment Eren tries to sneak a slice of his meat onto Armin's plate. Armin flits it back to his plate with a frown. "Armin, you should eat more. You want to be tiny forever?"

"I wouldn't mind not growing anymore." He says, warding off the meat again. "Stop... things from starting."

Mikasa opens her mouth to chastise him, but is beat to it by Marco, of all people.

"That's no reason to starve your body, Armin." He says gently, and slips some of his own meat onto Armin's plate. "I got too much, anyway."

Armin starts to shovel food into his mouth, leaning down so his fringe will cover his flushed cheeks. To his annoyance, Eren laughs and slaps him in the middle of the back.

"Seems you're not the only one with a keen eye, Armin."

Marco laughs sheepishly, protesting, and then gets pulled into an argument Jean and Connie are having, and Armin is allowed to slip under the radar once more, a daring feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

-

He ends up sharing a tent with Jean.

It's been a long day, and he's sweaty and dirty and tired, and he's already missing the luxury of a shower. He shovels his dinner down in under five minutes in an attempt to be in the tent long enough for some privacy as he changes and slips into his night clothes, but no such luck.

"Oi, are you fucking serious?" Jean snaps, for some reason furious, as he opens the tent. Armin freezes, not turning around, his throat closing up and here it is, exactly what he'd been fearing since day one. His hands clench around the fabric he's holding, shaking minutely.

"Jean, please don't t-"

"Are you using bandages? Man, you're meant to be the smart one. Goes to show even eggheads can be morons." Armin lets out a whoosh of air in shock and confusion, finally turning around. "Get those off, let me find something." Armin hurriedly unrolls the rest of the fabric around his chest and presses his jacket to his chest, back to Jean. He's hit in the back of the head with something, and he takes the unfamiliar garment into his hands.

"It's a compression undershirt. Wear that from now on." Jean is stripping himself, wearing a shirt similar to the one he just threw at Armin, and turns away before pulling that one off as well. "Don't use bandages, you retard. There's nothing more useless than a weak-ass soldier with broken ribs. And you can keep that, it's too small now anyway."

Armin nods, climbing into his sleeping bag. "I didn't know that could happen. Thanks, Jean."

Jean makes a noncommittal grunt, turning on his side, and is snoring within minutes.

Armin falls asleep soon after, stomach still hot and fluttery from nerves.

-

The next morning he wakes to half his friends shaking their heads disapprovingly at him when he exits the tent for breakfast, wearing the undershirt Jean gave him.

"What?" He says apprehensively, sitting next to Eren- who had thankfully come on this excursion after all.

"Jean spilled your beans," Eren said through gritted teeth. "I tried to punch him, but Reiner did that face. You know the one."

He did, and was glad he missed it.

"You know, Armin," Reiner calls from a few metres away, "If you're ever up towards my village, I can recommend a good doctor."

"Talk to Ymir when we get back- if you can find any arnica around, she can make a good salve for back pain." Bert chimes in.

Armin's head begins to swim as there is an outpouring of advice and admonishments both, and he is nodding appreciatively for three straight minutes, until the supervising seargants yell out at them to keep the noise down. It's a few minutes until someone speaks again, and this time it's Armin.

"Hey," he says to Reiner, because he's the closest person aside from Eren, "why do you think there's so many people like" _you_ , he nearly says, "us in this particular squad? I thought it was generally a taboo thing in the military."

Reiner shrugs, chewing on his last chunk of bread. "I suppose there's not enough people left to be picky about who is allowed to enlist anymore. If we're willing to die for them, who cares who or what we are, right?"

"You sounded like Eren just now,"  Armin chuckles, ignoring a jab in the back from said person. "Though that does sound about right."

"Alright! Enough chit-chat! I want you strapped up and in the air in five minutes!"

The voice of one of their supervisors stirs them all into action, and in seven minutes (and after a long reprimand for the delay) they're all in the air, slashing at dummy necks and trying not to smash face first into a tree. And although this is precisely the kind of training Armin despises the most, he's happy.

He makes a mental note to show up on the radar more often from now on.


End file.
